Anti-gambling Lobby Outmanoeuvring British Racing to shape the Nov 26 Budget.

Cold opens and silly prices

Poniros at 100-1. Qirat at 150-1. Miracles enough to make you suspect the universe has started day-drinking. But the most predictable result of the year wasn’t on turf; it was indoors, under strip-lighting, with complimentary digestives. While racing stared at the tote board, the anti-gambling lobby jogged the inside rail in spikes, kept their powder dry, and nicked everyone’s lunch.

May 14, Musidora Day. Not York—Westminster. Beige carpet, stackable chairs, hope on a lanyard. Team Racing: BHA caretaker capo Brant Dunshea, ARC’s Martin Cruddace, and select worthies. Team Reform: SMF’s James Noyes (patron saint of £100-a-month ration books), Matt Zarb-Cousin (ex-punter turned app-store conscience). Hovering like a well-funded drone: Derek Webb—$25m from Three Card Poker and now Britain’s most enthusiastic evangelist for locking the booze cabinet.

The stakes? A £3bn hole from affordability checks already throbbing like an abscess, and a Treasury “harmonisation” scheme that—by the BHA’s own sums—could skim £66m a year off the sport for the encore. Racing arrived with a petition and a PowerPoint. The reformers brought a map, a stopwatch, and Plan B through D.

While racing brought biscuits, the reformers brought choreography

The anti-gambling plan wasn’t “let’s talk”; it was fieldcraft.

1. Wedge racing away from its paymaster (bookmakers) with soothing lines like “we’re focused on gaming, not you.”

2. Borrow racing’s silhouette to sell a spectacular tax belt on online casinos.

3. Win either way: if the hike passes, cheers at Millbank; if it fails, the wedge stays in and harmonisation comes back round the carousel like Merry-Go-Round 2: This Time It’s Fiscal.

Zarb-Cousin’s January memo said the quiet bit loudly: separate sportsbook from casino; “peel off and neutralise racing.” Neutralise! Not befriend. Not support. Neutralise—as if Cheltenham were enriching uranium behind the Guinness Village. Racing read it, shrugged, and turned up for the photo. It’s like volunteering to be the assistant in a knife-throwing act because “he looks quite trustworthy.”

Thirsk: proof-of-concept done with warm prosecco

To prove they could move pieces on racing’s board, the campaigners bankrolled a Barstewards Enquiry raceday at Thirsk (April 12). Cash from the campaign, badge on the podcast, selfies in the parade ring: the optics were the point. Whispered helicopter chatter for Lee Anderson too—because nothing says “we’re here to help” like air-lifting controversy onto a North Yorkshire lawn. The chopper, mercifully, never choppered. It didn’t need to. The message had landed: we can operate inside your tent and it’ll look like your idea.

The SMF gambit: IKEA politics—flat-pack your own tax rise

The Social Market Foundation wheeled out the glossy:

• Remote gaming duty up from 21% to 50% (hello, slots).

• Levy doubled to 20% (for the horses—stroke fetlock, insert violin).

• Racing’s betting duty halved to 5% (shiny coin for the sport).

• General betting duty nudged to 25% for other sports (everyone suffers a bit—so it must be fair).

Gordon Brown applauded; Treasury pens practically unsheathed themselves. Trainers purred. Racing’s official line remained “axe the racing tax,” resist harmonisation. And a midweek “dark day” was booked—no fixtures, one big rally—Britain’s first silent protest performed at 80 decibels.

Here’s the trick: the SMF proposal is win-win—for them. If the Chancellor bites, gaming gets belted and the lobby celebrates “saving the horses.” If she doesn’t, racing’s very presence in the chorus makes it much harder to run back to the bookies with a straight face. Heads: the lobby advances the war on casinos. Tails: racing stays divided from the people who pay for the hay. That isn’t policy; it’s checkmate in three.

New laps added: Webb’s “man,” the media lap of honour, and the petition that squeaks

• Webb’s long arm to the Red Box. Racing WhatsApp chunter now insists Webb has “his man, Aveel,” quietly tucked in at the Treasury “shaping” the next Budget. Whether this is gospel or paddock lore, the perception is the point: the reformers look like they’ve got a relay runner carrying their baton right into the fiscal finishing straight. If true, it’s ruthless. If false, it’s still genius—because racing believes it.

• Media victory parade. The Barstewards now fancy Webb for a full, solo episode—the campaigner as main event, not a guest slot between kennel cough and going changes. And of course, the crown jewel: a comfy armchair on Luck On Sunday, where bad ideas go to be explained at length in an avuncular tone. The lobby isn’t just winning the meeting; it’s winning the sofa.

• The petition that went meep. Meanwhile the BHA waves a 13,000-signature petition gathered on a platform so inconsequential it might as well host your aunt’s bridge club. It’s performative democracy: a clip-art thermometer with delusions of influence. Treasury mandarins will use it to level a wobbly table.

Bookies vs. bishops: who brings the hay, again?

Flutter’s Seb Butterworth coughed the polite warning: cuddle crusaders and don’t be shocked when they smother you with care. Operators sluice £450m+ a year into racing via levy, rights, sponsorship. Squeeze margins and they will “rebalance” (MBA for “cut”) media-rights growth, shutter marginal shops, nix extra places, and tidy away accounts that can read an overround without moving their lips. Cruddace has the unfashionable truth: racing bets aren’t slots. Tax them like slots, inherit a slot’s corpse—only with rugs.

Meanwhile at the BHA: summon “social licence,” hope it bites

Dunshea’s refrain is immaculate HR-ese—engagement, transparency, social licence, singular focus on resisting harmonisation. Fine, as far as it goes—about three feet. “Engagement” isn’t a moat; it’s a drawbridge. The lobby didn’t need racing’s blessing; it needed its silhouette. Sit together and the line becomes: even racing agrees gaming should pay. Congratulations: you’ve been framed, and you brought the Blu Tack. The HBF? A masterclass in polite stenography: minutes taken, tea consumed, punters’ fury distilled into a bullet point called “members expressed concerns.” Racing is paying a consultancy to manage this: Think a 60 rated horse running in Group 1 race, gets to the front but pulls up a furlong out.

Buzzword bingo (bring a dabber, win a tote bag)

Harmonisation. Social licence. Evidence-led. Stakeholder alignment. Guardrails. Proportionate.
Shout HOUSE when someone says neutralise. Collect your free biscuit. Terms apply.

Brexit with bridles (director’s cut)

The senior source who called this “racing’s Brexit moment” deserves a biscuit. The arc writes itself:

• Grand promises now (levy rivers, prize-money fountains, a carve-out for the noble turf).

• Small print later (subject to headroom, behavioural responses, and Mercury not sulking).

• Awkward morning after: duty up, rights “reviewed,” shops trimmed, offers thin, account closures for the crime of noticing value.

By spring, with casinos choked, the harm chart tilts toward sports; think-pieces sprout: Is racing part of the problem? Spoiler—if it involves betting, the answer is yes. And round we go again, the reformers waving from the pace car.

Pub VAR (the only panel that gets it right)

Dave (cardigan, Carlisle leave booked): “So the fun police used racing as a mascot to mug the casino, then sent the mascot the bill?”
Sharon (knows Chester draw like her PIN): “Now Webb’s getting the full Barstewards episode and a Luck On Sunday sofa—must be nice to run PR on someone else’s airwaves, especially the enemy.”
Pete (outside, prophecy and Embassy): “Thirteen thousand signatures on a platform nobody’s heard of? That’s not leverage; that’s decoupage.”

Three pints; more insight than 84 pages and a watermark.

How racing stops being the cone in someone else’s slalom

• Refuse the slurry frame. Racing is not generic gambling paste. Demand distinct treatment in statute, not just in speeches.

• Re-ally with your paymaster (eyes open). One red line with operators: no “harmonised” tax on racing bets; predictable rights; joint comms so the Treasury hears one voice, not a kazoo recital.

• Fix checks, don’t fantasise. Push targeted, friction-light oversight for racing stakes; protect genuinely at-risk customers without turning Saturday accas into a mortgage interview.

• Bring the Treasury a corpse count. Model field sizes, rural jobs, media rights, VAT; make their spreadsheet cry.

• Make Punter representation more useful. Elect bulldozers, not minute-takers. “Engagement” isn’t a KPI; outcomes are.

• Rule zero: if a strategy contains the word neutralise, don’t smile and hand over your tie.

Final furlong, final word

Let’s not pretend. The anti-gambling lobby hasn’t “partnered” with racing; it has run rings round it—set the frame, split the allies, borrowed the microphone, slid a confidant (real or rumoured) into the Treasury relay, and lined up a win whether the Budget bites or not. Racing brought a petition and a hashtag. The reformers brought choreography, a media lap of honour, and the word neutralise in 24-point Calibri. And if you think affordability checks are going away without legislation, see a psychiatrist!

Thanks to Lee Mottershead Racing Post 08/09/2025